|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Posted on 02/04/2016 8:59:03 AM PST by SoConPubbie
The one question left unanswered amid the fight over campaigns sharing media reports about Ben Carson dropping out is why the report was so easy to believe in the first place. Carson’s campaign has been a series of stops and starts over the past few months – with a smattering of book promotion in between. It is through that prism that Carson’s Florida swing to pick up his laundry was viewed.
But first, a look at what happened on caucus night is in order.
Yes, CNN reported that it was “unusual” for a candidate who is “serious” about winning to “go home,” instead of campaigning. Here is the video from sixteen minutes before the caucuses opening.
Dana Bash said, “look, if you want to be President of the United States you don’t go home to Florida. I mean that’s just bottom line, the end of the story.” Bash continued, “if you want to signal to your supporters that you want it, that you are hungry for it, that you want them to get out and campaign, you gotta be out there doing it to. He’s not doing it. It’s very unusual.”
That is the bottom line. The Cruz campaign did not make something up out of thin air. They went off a report on a major news network that was broadcast sixteen full minutes before the start of the Iowa caucuses. That Cruz had a war room set up to take advantage of late breaking news and disseminate it to precinct captains is not something to look down at, but a show of strength of organization.
Perhaps that’s what really has Cruz’s rival campaigns upset. That he had an organization able to seize upon fast moving events.
Beyond that, it is helpful to look at why a story about Carson’s campaign not being serious was easily believed. It is because over the past few months Carson’s campaign has been beset by resignations, false starts, and a general unserious tone.
It starts first with his fundraising. While Carson is raising significant amounts of money, a large portion, near 50 % of the money raised, is going directly to the direct mail companies doing the fundraising, Politico reported back in October. Politico also reported that the Carson campaign has a transparency problem when it comes to his reports. Hiding who gets the final payments behind LLCs.
As of December 31, 2015, Carson had burned through 88% of the over $50,000,000 he had raised. Most of it went back to firms that are hard to trace, little of it went to actual campaigning.
At the end of December, about a month before the caucus, Carson’s campaign quit en masse. Reuters reported then:
U.S. Republican Ben Carson's 2016 presidential bid was thrown into chaos on Thursday when his campaign manager and some 20 other staff members quit amid infighting, dropping poll numbers and negative media coverage.
Barry Bennett, who oversaw Carson's rapid rise to the top tier of Republican contenders and his later fall, said he quit over differences with another top adviser to Carson, Armstrong Williams.
Specifically, Bennett blamed Williams for an interview Carson gave last week to The Washington Post suggesting that the campaign was in disarray. "It's one of the stupidest things I've ever seen a candidate do," Bennett said.
That’s right, Carson went to the media and said his own campaign was in disarray.
It wasn’t the first time that Carson’s campaign faced a major shakeup. Back in June the Washington Post reported that a number of Carson staffers left and his Super PACs were fighting with each other.
The presidential candidacy of Ben Carson, a tea party star who has catapulted into the top tier of Republican contenders, has been rocked by turmoil with the departures of four senior campaign officials and widespread disarray among his allied super PACs.
In interviews Friday, Carson’s associates described a political network in tumult, saying the retired neurosurgeon’s campaign chairman, national finance chairman, deputy campaign manager and general counsel have resigned since Carson formally launched his bid last month in Detroit. They have not been replaced, campaign aides said.
The moves gutted the core of Carson’s apparatus and left the 63-year-old first-time candidate with only a handful of experienced advisers at his side as he navigates the fluid, crowded and high-stakes contest for the Republican nomination.
Carson has had a longstanding problem keeping staff and managing those who are managing his campaign. Is it any wonder that a campaign staffer said something that could be misconstrued as him dropping out?
If Carson can’t manage his own campaign team, how will he be able to manage the country?
Robert Eno is the Director of Research for Conservative Review and also is a Contributor. He is a conservative from deep blue Massachusetts but now lives in Greenville, SC. He is also a fill-in radio host and appears on television. Follow him @robeno and feel free to email him at reno@conservativereview.com.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
whoever buys that ‘going to swap laundry’ is pretty gullible. had this been the truth, he would have sent somebody, or had them sent out to him
somebody needed to say that
Good point.
His skirt was too short and he showed a little too much cleavage.
He had that rape comin’
If Carson went to the trouble of trying to mislead Iowa voters into thinking that he was quitting then yes.
But if that was done by a clever rival to give the impression that Carson was quitting, then no.
If anything, this kerfuffle is all about Carson’s campaign trying to reset itself into the race.
Blaming the victim is so lame.
Yes, I fully believe he was going to “suspend his campaign”, but then he realized he might have one last chance to get some momentum by making a lot of noise about Ted Cruz “cheating”.
I can’t believe Ben Carson is not taking more responsibility for his campaign starting this whole thing in thing in the first place!
Carson set a trap for everybody else in the race that actually wants to win. Cruz and Rubio BOTH took the bait, but Carson quite obviously intends to endorse Rubio and hand over his base. He’s getting in all the whacks against Cruz - like Sarah - in the meantime.
Funny thing is Carson’s base may not be real comfortable getting behind Rubio, but not as uncomforable as Santorum’s base in migrating to him.
Luckily there are far more less obtuse readers lurking who can still be convinced.
“media reports about Ben Carson dropping out is why the report was so easy to believe in the first place.”
Even when Carson is there, you don’t know he’s there. If he dropped out without making an informal announcement, it’d be a couple of weeks before anyone noticed.
This wasn’t a dirty trick by Cruz; CNN’s report of Carson leaving the campaign trail is one of the more believable reports ever to come out of CNN.
I dunno. Carson never struck me as being much of a schemer.
I think he just guilelessly told a reporter that he intended to stop off at home to rest and some clever rival teams noticed that the statement was ambiguous enough to be misleading. So they ran with it.
I was surprised to see Santorum endorse Rubio, I find Rubio to be especially devious and phony. If Carson endorses him as well that would also come as a surprise.
Have you ever pondered if Ken Mehlman was a mentor to Rubio? And Tom Foley? Those ‘alternative lifestyle’ Florida GOP-ers sure are thick as thieves together.
bump for later
Carson also said he was going to Washington for the prayer breakfast after “changing clothes” in Florida.....
Carson is not a stupid man and knows he has NO chance of actually winning the Presidency. It’s about the money. The evidence of this is his leaving the campaign for his book tours and “not replacing his campaign chairman, national finance chairman, deputy manager and general counsel”, who have all quit. Today he announced that half of his other campaign staff have been let go. He’ll hang on until his donations dry up.
I’m sure it all seemed like innocuous comments to Carson.
He’s not sneaky enough to realize that it could be used by a clever rival to imply that he was quitting the campaign, to try to peel off some votes that would otherwise go to Carson.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.